


Desert Planet Origin Story

by honeypothux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character Study, Hux Backstory, Parent-Child Relationship, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Young Hux
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7468623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeypothux/pseuds/honeypothux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>They say those from the desert are the thirstiest. They thirst for change, for opportunity, for <strong>power</strong>. Indeed, it is those from the place life ought not be that change life the most.</em> </p><p>As the Empire falls apart around them, Brendol Hux and his young son, Armitage Hux, find themselves stranded on the unforgiving desert planet of Jakku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desert Planet Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was 100% an accident. Don't ask me how I got here.
> 
> Unbeta'd and posted. I'm hoping it reads fine, anyway.

Armitage Hux was only five years old when the Empire fell. His life erupted in the flames of the Second Death Star. He was too young to understand the implications, but the gravity of his father’s expression was enough. Brendol stared out into space for long hours the day after the Battle of Endor. “The Emperor has died,” He said, voice empty and vacuous as the space around them. Armitage cried and, for once, Brendol permitted it.  
  
On the eve of the Empire’s defeat, when the Battle of Jakku shook the Empire’s last stronghold, Brendol Hux took his son and fled. Officers called after them, demanding Brendol hold his position, but he marched on. The hanger bay was near barren, fearful technicians and troopers having taken most of the ships. Brendol made do with a rickety, outdated TIE fighter. His time as a pilot had served him well enough.  
  
Armitage sniffled in the seat beside him, curling his little legs to his chest. The star destroyer shuttered, racked by an incoming volley of fire, and Brendol sighed. He half-thought to comfort his son, but he wasn’t one to lie. The circumstances were dire, the odds they’d survive slight. “Enough,” He said, flicking on a series of switches. “We can’t have that right now.”  
  
Plasma fire streaked across their field of vision as Brendol threw them into the fray, charging the TIE fighter through the battle. Armitage continued to tremble, but he held back his tears. His father’s face looked yen years older than it ever had. This was no time to cry.  
  
The fighter’s comm buzzed to life, filled with the hurried voices of Imperial men. “We’re going to die!” Someone shouted, voice muffled by static and obscured by tears. “We’re all going to die if we stay he—,”

Brendol flicked the comms offline. He needed both hands to steer, but the look on Armitage’s face when the voice started sobbing was enough to take risk. “Ignore it,” He commanded. An X-wing lined up behind them and he paled, knuckles bone-white. Armitage turned to look back and Brendol snapped at him. “Eyes forward, boy!”

Armitage listened, staring straight out into the battle field. His lips trembled, stomach turning over in his gutt. “Papa,” He said, eyes set on a crumbling edges of a distant star destroyer. “I want to help. Let me help.”

Brendol took a sharp right, ducking beneath the burning bits of some other ship. “You can’t help, Armitage. There is nothing you can do.”

“But Papa I—“  
  
“You can’t do anything!” Brendol shouted. His words carried over the sounds war and Armitage inhaled, his eyes growing wide. Brendol looked to him, saw the welling tears, and felt his heart clench in his chest. “No, I didn’t mean it that way I just—“  
Alarms started blaring inside the TIE fighter, red lights flashing off the panels. “Kriffing hell!” Brendol shouted. They’d been struck and lost half the left wing. He pulled back on the controls, desperate to avoid a tail-spin and failed. The X-wing turned its attention elsewhere, assured in their destruction. Years later, Brendol Hux would say he survived on nothing more than some foolish pilot’s hubris.  
  
“What’s happening?” Armitage cried, covering his ears as fat tears rolled down his cheeks. Brendol cursed under his breath, doing his best to keep a straight face as they plummeted toward Jakku, caught in its gravitational pull. There was no fighting planet, not with one wing down. He ran his tongue over his teeth. This was going to be wild.  
  
“I’m going to crash-land,” He said, turning knobs and pulling levers. He moved with the same tenacity as he had a decade prior during the Ryloth Rebellion. Armitage watched his father with aw, having never seen Brendol do anything but bark orders and mull over plans.  
  
The entered the atmosphere moments later, the outside of the ship engulfed in flame. They were coming in too hot, but Brendol refused to die. He thought of his wife back home and of the Empire he’d need to avenge. He thought of the boy, so far from adulthood, at his side.  
  
“Papa, I’m scared,” Armitage said, the ship shuddering around them. The scream of the engine silenced him and, in the final moments before they crashed to the earth, Brendol considered comforting his son again. If he promised they were alright, now, Armitage would be dead before he could realize it was a lie. Brendol looked to his son and opened his mouth.  
  
They cracked against the ground. Everything went black.

* * *

 

Brendol awoke, sputtering. The world smelled of burning fuel and tasted of blood. His body screamed, ears ringing with a high pitched whine. He opened his eyes to the site of twisted metal. Adrenaline pounded in his veins and he snapped to action, old training protocols screaming in his mind. He pulled his release cord and struggled out of the wreckage, falling to the sand in a bloody heap.  
  
As he lay there, the sunlight beating down on his abused skin, he heard gentle sobbing. Immediately, despite his overwhelming desire to lay down and never move again, he was standing. “Armitage!” He shouted, pulling open the back hatch of the TIE fighter. “Don’t move. I’ll get you. Stay calm.”  
  
He found Armitage, blood leaking from nose, pinned against the seat. He was shaking and red-faced, shoving at the metal against his chest. Brendol grunted and worked his too-big torso into the TIE Fighter, pulling his son free even as metal dug into his own flesh.  
  
Once back out on the sand, Brendol fell flat on his ass. He held Armitage upright and looked him over. He was mostly alright, shell-shocked but alive. His nose was broken, likely from the airbags. Brendol slumped over, his forehead pressed to Armitage’s chest, and panted.  
  
“We’re alright,” He said, barely able to believe it himself. “We’re alright, boy. You can stop your crying now. We made it out okay.” Armitage set one hand on his father’s head and Brendol smiled, laughing.  
There was nothing around them for miles. The sand stretched past where Brendol could see. Even Armitage, hoisted on his father’s shoulders, saw nothing.  
  
The sun was dipping over the horizon by the time Brendol had pulled all the unburnt emergency supplies. They both thanked the Force for that. They were both brunt beyond reason, fair skin blister red.  
  
As Brendol sorted through what was useable, Armitage sat beside him. Armitage was meticulous, analyzing every piece before organizing them back in the bag for his father. Brendol almost said that such scrutiny was unnecessary, but he let the boy feel useful, for once.  
  
The communicator was badly broken and Brendol used dozen sweats Armitage had never heard before to describe it.  
  
Jakku at night was frigid cold and pitch black. Even with the fighters emergency light, they could only see a few feet in front of them. Nevertheless, once the bags were packed, Brendol started walking. “We’ll make better time at night,” He said, staring down at his son, who followed behind him. “Which isn’t true of most, just so you know. We gingers simply have special demands put upon us. Suns are our oldest enemy.”

Armitage nodded and smiled. “Of course, Papa.” Despite the circumstances, he felt his heart swell. His father had not said so many words to him in a long time 

* * *

 

By the time Brendol laid eyes on eyes on civilization, the sun was rising in the North. His boots were full of sand, officer’s jacket pulled overhead to keep him cool. Armitage was clamped to his back, awake enough to hold onto his father. Sweat drenched them both, the glamor of Imperial life gone along with the Empire.  
  
Through the night, they’d seen a dozen ships come crashing toward the earth. The sky seemed alight with deadly fire, cut apart by smoke. At one point, Brendol stopped to stare. “That’s a star destroyer. Too big to be anything else,” He said, painting to a line far in the distance. It would crash a half world away, but when it hit, he swore he felt something.  
  
“Is it yours?” Armitage asked, little brows knit together. Brendol inhaled and looked away.  
  
“Maybe so,” He said, and kept going.  
  
At the sight of the outpost, brimming with sun-bleached huts and rusting metal speeders, Brendol exhaled. More than once, he’d considered the possibility they were on the far edge of the planet, a thousand miles from anything living. They had thirty days of insta-rations, but they’d have died from heat stroke long before that. Now, watching alien creatures bob their head beside a long trough of water, he knew they’d survive.  
  
Brendol set his son down beside the water. They were both quick to drink, ignoring the stares of Jakku natives. Armitage whimpered as the water went down, his broken nose burning. He drank anyway, but his hands trembled.  
  
As Brendol rubbed water over his face, something blunt stabbed him in the back. He turned, coming face-to-face with the end of some Kyudo’s walking stick. It spat at him in Huttese. Brendol caught a few words, enough to know he ought to move. He stood, pulling Armitage up with him. “We’ll be on our way.”  
  
As they made their way through town, countless eyes fell on their back. Whispers passed around them and Brendol clenched his jaw, holding their supplies in his arms. Armitage followed in his shadow, hiding in the shade his father provided, watching as the strange creatures seemed to follow behind them.  
  
The moment they stopped in the shade of some toppled building to open their rations, a gang of Uthuthma appeared, weapons in hand. “No one stays in this town without paying the rent, human,” One of them said, glaring out from the deep sockets of its face.  
  
Brendol considered reaching for the blaster at his hip, but he doubted he’d get off two shots before there was an electrified spear through his chest. His next thought was invoking rank, saying that the Empire would never tolerate such treatment of their officers. But, even if they weren’t aware of the Empire’s impending fall, they could see he was stranded here without contact. Jakku was vast – the Empire would never come searching for one man’s corpse, not in all the kriffing sand.  
  
“You would charge me for the shade?” He asked, raising one hand to block out the son. At his side, Armitage studied the Uthuthma. Their hideous, gnashing jaws and beady eyes sent a chill down his spine. His father never bothered telling him the monsters in his closet weren’t real. Apparently, that had been the right choice.

  
The lead Uthuthma clicked, a low growl coming from deep in their throat. They lowered their spear, bringing it to Armitage’s face. The boy froze, but did not quiver. “And for the water you stole.”  
  
Brendol reached out, grabbing the staff by the point and turning it from his son’s face. “And what would you charge for shade and water?”

  
The group of aliens looked among themselves. There were not many who questioned them in this town. It was strange to see a creature, especially a feeble human, question them. “Your life, if you do not yield.”  
  
Brendol released the spear and sighed. He stood up, brushing the sand from his pants. “Tell me, is there a communicator module in this town?” He said, earning confused clicks form the Uthuthma. Brendol drew his blaster and they cried out raising they weapons. Electricity buzzed through the air and Armitage ducked his head down, currying it in his knees.  
  
Brendol held up his free hand, shushing the gang like they were mere children. In his eyes, their aliens minds were even less than that. “This is a BlasTech DL-44 heavy blaster pistol. Take it as your rent, know that I am unable to hurt you, and tell me where I can find a comm.”  
  
The Uthuthma scrambled for the blaster, tearing it from Brendol’s hand and fighting over it. Armitage hugged his father’s leg, smiling. They looked like starving animals tugging at me. He knew that, once his father got in contact with the Empire, they’d be slain as the beasts they were.  
  
Once one of the Uthuthma had claimed the blaster for himself, they all turned back to Brendol. “There are none here, but there is a larger outpost to the East. Go see Koris in the big tent. He can help you,” One of them said. They all departed speaking of flurry of Huttese, leaving Brendol and Armitage to their meal.  
  
As they shared in bland insta-rations, Armitage furrowed his brows. “Papa, why did you give them your gun?” He asked, crumbs spread out over his cheeks. “What are you going to do if something bad comes?”

Brendol smirked, taking a bite out of his bread. “Have some faith in your father, Armitage,” He said, looking to their bag. “You act as if there isn’t another sitting right there.”

The large tent in the center of town buzzed with activity. A dozen species chattered in Huttese and Basic, their hands waving wildly as they bartered metal ore, scrap parts, and rations. Armitage turned around in a circle, mouth gaping. Compared to the straight lines rigid postures of the Empire, the bazaar appeared as a swirling vortex of character and chaos. He was both compelled and repulsed, wanting to run and join all at once. “Papa, what is this place?”  
  
Brendol was too preoccupied to answer, having caught the attention of a man at the head of the tent. He was tawny brown and lithe, standing with the sort of posture Brendol expected from an admiral. The man clapped his hands overhead and the crowds came to a halt, bits of scrap clattering on the tables. “It appears we have a guest,” The man said, cutting across the tent and approaching Brendol and Armitage. “It isn’t often we get visitors. What can I do for you, Imperial?”  
  
Brendol raised a brow. A smile cracked across his dry lips. So, he’d found someone worth talking to. “Recognize the jacket, I presume?”

“Of course,” The man said, returning Brendol’s expression. “We have been picking them off dead men for weeks now. That battle of yours has been a god send down here.” He extended his hand. “Koris Katsura.”

“Commandant Brendol Hux,” He replied, taking Koris’ hand. They entertained a brief battle of squeezes, each fighting to leave the redder impression on the other’s hand, before pulling apart.

Armitage averted his eyes, staring to the ground. He wanted to vanish, to sink deep into the sands and never return. He loathed introductions, the way his father would stumble over his words, searching for the best way to say bastard or accident or mistake. He looked up only when he heard Koris move.  
  
Koris crouched before him, bending over to meet Armitage’s eyes. He extended his hand, offering a small smile. “And you are?”

Armitage was fairly certain that no one, not in the entirety of his five years of life, had ever addressed him with such warmth. If not for the sunburn spread across his face, his flush would have been obvious. Despite the pain radiating from his nose, he managed a little smile. “I’m Armitage,” He said, finally peeling himself free of his father’s side. He took Koris’s hand, only able to grasp a few fingers, and shook.  
  
“Pleasures all mine,” Koris said, patting Hux’s head before rising and looking back to Brendol. He waved his hand and the chaos started up again, a Teedo and Crolute erupting in argument only a few feet away.  
  
“What kind of business are you running here?” Brendol asked, scanning the room. There were a substantial amount of rocks being swapped around but, beyond that, he had no idea what he was looking at.  
  
“This place is a mining outpost. I run this trade center for the Hutt over in Garozoa. Swapping food for metal and interesting scrap. Nothing fancy,” Koris explained. He looked over the tent as if he were lying, as if it was something fancy.  
  
Brendol nodded his head. The Hutts wielded more power now than they had under the Empire, occupying a network of planets that the Republic and Order hadn’t had the force or time to absorb. Their criminal empire was operated over long-distance comm calls, so Brendol had no doubt he’d find what he was looking for in Garozoa. “Is Garozoa far from here?”  
  
“Six days walk if you go the safe route, seven hours if you charge right through the sinking flats,” Koris said, pointing out over the horizon. Brendol followed his finger, shoulders dropping. He had no doubt in his mind that, under the appropriate circumstances, he could make a six days walk in the desert. But Armitage was a feeble, sickly child. He’d never make the journey.  
  
“I don’t suppose this is part where you tell me you’re an excellent guide for those sinking flats?” He asked, earning a smirk from Koris.  
  
“As a matter of fact, it is.” Koris clapped his hands together, turning back to Brendol. “Making the long trip would ruin my business, so we cut through the flats with the ore once a week. I know every pit in that field by heart. But, I’ll be honest I don’t really see what I’d get from helping you other than a bad conscious.” He gestured to Brendol’s coat, smile slipping away. “You Imperials are pretty harsh on the sort of people I cater to.”

“And yet we are impossibly good to those who have something to offer us,” Brendol said. He knelt down and lifted Armitage into his arms. It was a silent power play; Koris had greeted Armitage with affection. There was no way he’d leave the boy out in the desert to die. “The Empire will compensate you for your troubles. I’m an important man.”

Koris laughed. “Ah, yes. An important man. I can see,” He said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And how am I to know your Empire hasn’t fallen apart? From what my boss told me that last time I visited, this battle seemed pretty important to the war effort. What if you’ve lost?”

“Well, I suppose we’ll both find that out once we get to Garozoa,” Brendol said, playing coy.  
  
Koris quirked a brow before donning a bright, new smile He looked more holovid star than ore dealer and Brendol loathed it. “I suppose we will.”

* * *

 

Brendol and Armitage spent the night in Koris’s hut, huddled up in the corner. With a roof over their heads, Brendol set about treating the worst of their injuries. He smeared tore a bit of fabric off the end of his jacket sleeve and coated it in the bacta gel from the emergency kit. “Sit still,” He commanded, slowly pressing the fabric bits into his son’s nose. Armitage squirmed and Brendol had no idea if this would help, but it was all he knew to do.  
  
Not long after night fell, a girl came through the front door and interrupted Koris’ “fascinating” account of mutant dune rats. She was wire thin and tall, though a baby face betrayed her youth. She couldn’t have been much older than fourteen, though her expression was sharp and wizened by the rough reality of her home. At the sight of her, Koris’ jovial expression slipped away.  
  
He stood and walked across the room, speaking to her in rapid-fire Huttese. She responded in kind. Their hands moved in a flurry of gestures and Brendol, affronted by the speed and sound of it all, turned inward. Armitage, on the other hand, turned toward it with the same interest he’d shown in the tent. The girl, with stick-straight posture and grounded feet, read like a soldier. She railed against her commanding officer, or perhaps they were equal despite the age difference. She was strong and he admired it.  
  
After a few minutes of argument, the girl turned her attention to Brendol and Armitage. She asked Koris something in hushed Huttese, earning an equally unintelligible answers. After a few moments of silence, she approached. “I am Imam,” She said, crouching down beside them on the floor. “You are from the Empire?”

Brendol nodded, unwilling to engage in conversation with some child when his muscles burned under his skin. Imam took note of his stand-offish behavior and looked to Armitage instead, staring at the boy’s bruising nose. She reached out to touch him and Brendol tensed, watching as her hand grew closer to his son’s face. When her fingertip touched Armitage’s broken nose, Brendol yanked him away.  
  
“What do you think you’re doing?” He snapped, glaring at the girl. She sat back on her heels, regarding him with no expression.

“I’ve never seen such an awful wound dressing,” She said, boldfaced and without pause. Brendol inhaled, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. No one had insulted him so plainly in years, not since he was a lowly cadet making his rounds. His pride demanded he snap, but better judgment cooled him. This girl, with her thick black hair and wide lips, was unmistakably Koris’. There’d be no faster way to lose his guide.  
  
“So you decided to cause him pain?” Brendol asked, scarcely concealing a sneer. Armitage wriggled against his chest, trying to pull free of his father’s vice grip. The hold squeezed down on his bruises, making tears well in his eyes.  
  
Imam shook her head and extended her arms. “You’ve done more of that yourself,” She said, looking to Armitage’s pained expression. Brendol looked down and loosened his grip, the veins of his neck flaring. He wanted to say, “Pull it together,” but figured it best to avoid looking stern before company.

  
“Imam has a way with injuries. Let her see your boy,” Koris called from a room away. He heated hard beans over a firepit, coaxing something like flavor from dry, unforgiving food.  
  
Brendol sighed and relented, setting Armitage down. The boy looked back to his father, uncertainty evident in his sad eyes. Imam coaxed him forward and took his hand, leading Armitage across the house. She settled with him in the kitchen, setting to work on his nose. While she could do nothing to truly mend it, her efforts soothed the burning in his nose, gaining a sigh from his lips.  
  
Koris joined Brendol in the corner, sitting down and offering him some beans. Brendol accepted, if only because he’d rather not waste spare rations. “Thank you,” He said, staring down at the soupy, grey mess of beans. Koris waved his hand and then ate with it, spooning the beans into his mouth. Brendol grimaced but followed suit.  
  
Across the room, Armitage did the same with Imam. She offered him beans he ate, content with his inability to smell or taste given the food’s suspect appearance. He’d never thought a broken nose would be a blessing, but here he was. Imam watched him with a strange intensity and he shied under her gaze.  
  
“Your father is a stupid man,” She said, turning to look at her soup. Grains of sand, long tangled in her hair, fell free as she ate.  
  
Armitage’s eyes widened. He’d never heard such a plain insult of his father. Back in the Empire, men and women straightened their posture and saluted as Brendol passed. How was it here, on Jakku, that everything was so different? “He’s an officer. That means he’s smart,” He said, trying to rectify the situation. Clearly, she just didn’t understand.  
  
But Imam shook her head and set her bowl down. Her eyes locked on Armitage’s and she took hold of his shoulder. Her hands were rough and weathered from a thousand hours sorting rocks and Armitage thought of the Storm Troopers, battle worn and wise. “No,” She said, more certain than anything Armitage had ever known. “He is a stupid man.”

“But you just met him,” He said, unable to tear himself away from her. Not wanting to tear himself away from her.  
  
“And I know that, all the same,” She said. “He thinks you are nothing, doesn’t he? He held you like a sack.”  
  
Armitage pressed his lips together. It was enough of an answer.  
  
“He is stupid.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also, yes, this is the "how many parallels to other people can you draw" fic. In other words, there is a reason I made Brendol a pilot who favors that particular brand of blaster rifle.
> 
> Please tell me how you're feeling about this fic! I'm not sure how many more chapters it'll go (probably three or four), but I'd love to hear your input as I move forward.


End file.
